I will sit in my garden and watch birds eat fruits, seeds, plants, etc and I like to think of myself pretty chill I let them have their snacks but when I see a gopher mound I go Rambo on them
For me, it's the squirrels eating my avocados and blueberries. I've managed to largely eliminate gophers inadvertently when I installed a snake fence around the property. The snake fence, 1/4" wire mesh, is buried about 18" below ground and 3' above ground and since it was installed I haven't seen a gopher on the property. I've even seen some gopher holes pop up right at the fence a couple of times.
My dad used those traps with success, but it was a never-ending battle. After watching a hilarious video of GrowJack and his little brother celebrating their success using one, I have recently purchased a GopherHawk. A friend swears by his BlackHole gopher trap. I would never use poison as I too have hawks, and owls, and feral cats, who all regularly patrol my hillside and keep it from becoming gopherville. It really is like a cartoon when you go out and find a whole zucchini plant sucked down a gopher hole, and nothing but the top leaves twirled in a rosette stuck at the top of the gopher hole. A local flower farmer told me they trenched a two foot ditch around their entire property before ever starting their farm, and filled it with broken glass to keep out gophers.
I have gophers so bad here in my backyard that it seriously looks like swiss cheese! I grow everything in totes and planters except my sunflowers, i grow those in 5gall metal mesh pockets. Thanks for sharing 😊👍
I grow up here on the Central Coast, our entire property is literally beach sand. Gophers are INTENSE here. I struggle so much with them.I do have a few raised beds. But is so irritating to have 5 acres and only a few raised beds that I can actually farm! I am also one who likes to work WITH nature. But here the gophers are out of control, we kill as many as possible and it’s still not making a dent. My boxer and our cat are such good hunters thankfully!
You must live not far from me, my soil is beach sand as well and the gophers are wicked nuts intense here they will dig around a raised bed and sink it trying to get past the hardware cloth they are really really really devious and destructive. I have 10 acres of land and want to farm it as well, it really upsets me, wanted to grow some grain or some veggies to sell as I have the space.
We had gophers that ate the entirety of the root system of our fig tree tgat was like 7 feet tall and I remember my mom just pulled it out of the ground with one hand basically, we just kind lifted it out and fell over with no roots left. Also my grandpa was using those traps 30 years ago when I was a tiny kid, and I too can remember seeing little trees or plants start twitching and all of a sudden just phwoosh disappear down into the ground.
If you have multiple tunnels and cant get him after multiple trap sets, flooding one of the tunnels and forcing them to run out will often result in them running into one.
Those traps are junk but we’re fine before better traps came along. The gophinator trap from trapline products is the best. And is stainless steel and will not rust / lose sensitivity overtime. Also baiting is important and improves your catch rate. Iv owned my own trapping business going on 28 years what do I know though.
Thanks for mentioning 'why' Gophers show up: softened soil. I've started out slow; moving raised beds, mini-greenhouse, etc. It's allowed me time to notice 'critter issues' without alot of plants being damaged and learn 'how to' techniques. Thanks again and please introduce the black, good kitty next time.
I got a battle going on right now, I put Carolina reaper pepper powder all over the place. I think it went to my neighbor yard the whole slowly moved towards the fence and under. My cat got one and I have another one. As long as they dont mess up my veggies or my lawn I have not had the need to kill them I just try and push them to neighbor's yard. LOL. My wife thinks I am going to end up like the caddie shack deal and come home to a giant crater in the back yard.
I prefer the flat plate cinch trap so you don't have to dig as much, just make sure to get the right size for your local species. Also you didn't cover disposal. I just put it back in the hole to give it back to the earth and soil life.
I’ve had to bury buckets and switch to container gardening because I live across the street from a golf course and they have taken more than their share of vegetables, especially carrots one day I had carrots and next day all but 1 was gone!
I just started my garden and I already know it's gonna be a problem. I have a raised bed that I will be putting things into that has hardware cloth, but we have so much space that we can't do that for every place we want to grow so I might have to trap
I used a garden hose to flush a gopher out of his tunnels/hole and put a basket over him, slid a piece of metal underneath, and relocated him. I thanked him for aerating my hard soil and told him to go elsewhere now.
That does not work. Please dont share false information. I have battled gopher issue using your techniques for 3 month before I had to finally resort to trap. Trap instantly took care of the gopher that ravaged my yard into Swiss cheese.
I too try to give room for all of God's creatures in the garden, even wasps, but gophers and black widows are given no quarter. Gotta draw the line somewhere I suppose.
You know I wondered that- I have stuck my hands in some “spidery” places during my decade of growing and have never gotten bit but we see them everywhere
@@SanDiegoSeedCompany Gloves. After seeing all the black widows and an occasional tarantula in my garden I don't go out without gloves even though they won't help much with the occasional rattlesnake I've had to catch and move.
Thank you for this video. It's so frustrating when the gophers move in, and we have quite a hard time actually trapping them. We just ordered the GopherHawk. Have you tried it?
Ive had best success with the gopherhawk in our old raised beds (we struggle with voles). Overall I would say it's been moderately successful (probably more if I moved them around more)--I'd say I'm on par with my cats although the cats seem to mostly catch baby voles.
I really like the gopher hawk. It's super easy to use and is really effective... Poor gophers don't stand a chance. I've got a baby bunny I need to figure out how to deal with :(
I think the hardest part for me is disposing of the gophers. What do you do? We have ground squirrels in our yard so would you use the same method? Thanks for tackling this subject as many gardeners do not talk about it.
I've been using havahart traps to catch the ground squirrels that were eating my avocados and blueberries. A little peanut butter has worked well as a lure for me.
If I was a farmer and my family needs to be fed, I'm not working with anything that's removing food from my family's mouths. Especially if I planted it.
Out of curiosity can you eat the gophers? Know that I'm not casting judgement, but my personal ethics with regards to killing animals is that I try to only kill what I'll eat. Again, I want to be clear I'm not casting judgement, I'm just curious.
I'm curious too! It's not something we've done, but as some people have noted, burying the gopher can be an option to keep the nutrients in your soil. You want to make sure your hole is deep enough to not attract scavengers. Under a fruit tree is best, which may not always be an option.
@@SanDiegoSeedCompany my original comment disappeared. Anyway, I don't have issues with groundhogs but I have used carcasses from other animals to fertilize my garden. My pups find the weak animals.
Every wild animal needs to be kept in check otherwise they would over run everything weaker than themselves. It is natures way that every creatire has a predator that kills it.
I was pretty traumatized watching my farmer grandfather beat gophers to death with a shovel when I was 5 or 6. Been better if he would have trapped them or something
